


Like the Taste of Honeyed Wine

by FourteenMinutes



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dragon Age Prompt Generator, Dragon Age Quest: Here Lies the Abyss, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Purple Hawke, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, in which no one ever told me to finish one work before starting another, you didn't think this would be easy did you?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 07:25:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9168172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FourteenMinutes/pseuds/FourteenMinutes
Summary: While scouting the Storm Coast, Wardens Carver Hawke and Jean-Marc Stroud are summoned to Orlais. Fleeing only a few weeks later with Loghain and a steadfast conviction of corruption in the Warden ranks, Carver contacts his sister, who leads him to the only woman who may be able to help - the Inquisitor.Power-hungry and driven by glory, Inquisitor Cadash may not be his first choice for salvation, but they have little choice, and Carver finds himself faced with more engrossing reasons to remain at Skyhold.---Essentially an AU where Grey Warden Carver Hawke becomes the Warden Ally to the Inquisition.Born from a prompt from the Dragon Age Prompt Generator: Carver & Dorian, "Brave my storm.” that somehow managed to get wildly out of hand.





	

**Author's Note:**

> One out of three Wardens meets the Inquisitor.

_Toast them all!_

 

The cavern which the three men had been sharing for the last four weeks smelt of sweat and piss and mould, in spite of their better efforts.

Carver tried to ignore the smell by taking watch duty outside as frequently as possible, resigning himself to the sensation of being persistently being soaked to the skin in return for the ability to breathe through his nose for a few hours a day. Loghain and Stroud, on the other hand, seemed to have resigned themselves to the smell. It was, after all, a much more pleasant alternative to having a sword drawn across their throats by their fellow Grey Wardens. And since the Wardens had begun to patrol the sodden stretch of Imperial Highway that ran through the village of Crestwood, it was a price that they were increasingly willing to pay.

Slumping in front of the small fireplace, Carver attempted to ignore the squelch of his armour as he sat down and water seeped into his smallclothes. Wrangling his boots and braces off, he gave his report.

“There were forces scouting Three Trout Pond earlier, heading west.”

Across the fire from him, Loghain grunted. Stroud did not look up from sharpening his sword as he spoke.

“They are getting too close. We cannot hold out here much longer without being discovered. If Hawke does not return with the Inquisitor soon…”

“But this Inquisitor could be our only shot at stopping Clarel.”

“Which is why we must make certain that the other Wardens do not catch us, or we will be of no help to the Inquisition.”

“My sister -”

“Will be able to find us,” interrupted Loghain. “If necessary, we will leave them a signal to our next location. But I agree with Warden Stroud. We cannot afford to stay here for much longer.”

Carver did not argue further, defeated. Stroud and Loghain were good at that – agreeing – whether he went along with them or not. It annoyed him.

Conversation effectively over, they lapsed back into silence underscored by the hard hiss of sharpening steel and the familiarity of each other’s breathing. It was not quite comfortable, even if it was not quite strained, and it had followed the three of them ever since they had been forced to flee Orlais for Ferelden.

Only occasionally it was punctuated by them arguing about the source of their misfortunes, one Warden Commander Clarel de Chansons. Where they disagreed on the specifics, they all agreed on one thing above all – she had screwed them, and the Warden Order, over royally.

That established, they had spent the spent the five months following their expulsion and flight arguing over everything from why she had done it to whether word had reached Weisshaupt. Having come to an agreement over very little else, every conversation started the same way.

“Any word from the others?” Intoned Stroud flatly.

And most of the answers went the same way too.

“No.” A pause as he finally managed to extract his feet and set about putting his socks as close as physically possible to the fire without burning them. “I think I saw Warden Rousseau leading the patrols though.”

“Hmph. I find it hard to understand why a man like Rousseau decided to take Clarel’s side. He is not a rash man…”

“One need not be rash to make a bad decision. That Clarel chose to work with Corypheus is proof enough.”

“Like you did at Ostagar?”

Loghain gave a crude approximation of a laugh. “You sound like Warden-Commander Meerah now. She always was fond of reminding me of my mistakes.”

“But now she has disappeared from the face of Thedas, and Clarel is leading the southern Grey Wardens to ruin.” Stroud’s tone was closer to an accusation than a statement, and Carver braced himself for the forthcoming argument about the current whereabouts of the Hero of Ferelden.

“The Warden-Commander –”

“Maybe the Inquisition has found her. All we know is that our only hope of stopping Clarel before this madness goes too far is by working with them.”

“If what Hawke says is true.”

“My sister would not risk exposing us by bringing the Inquisitor here if she didn’t think it would help us! We both saw Corypheus, we both know the threat. If she says that the best hope for the Wardens is with the Inquisition, then I believe her.”

Sighing, Loghain stood up and unsheathed his sword. “It’s not that we don’t believe her that you trust her to do the right thing, Carver. But we can’t wait in the hills for the Inquisition to find us with the number of Wardens in the area. You said that there were men down by the Pond? Then we head east.”

“We still have a few more hours of daylight. We could scout the eastern farmsteads for shelter and before returning here,” noted Stroud. “That should give Hawke and the Inquisitor one more day. If they haven’t arrived by tomorrow, we will move positions.”

“Good. If you take the northern region Stroud, I can scout the southern area closer to the dam.”

Carver felt his ears burning. “And what about me?”

“You stay here, make sure that the camp is cleared in time for us to leave tomorrow. If the Inquisitor arrives, you can take care of them.”

“Understood.”

He saved the dissident muttering for after the two senior Wardens had left, as he began to strip the place systematically of any signs of human life. Well, most of them. The cavern was spacious enough to have served as a smugglers outpost when they found it, occupants still inside. After clearing it out, they had found the beds and fireplaces still fit for purpose, and made little effort to scrub the smugglers’ insignia off the walls.

That left their clothes, their weapons, and what little essentials they had managed to take with them. He was halfway through folding his smallclothes and ignoring the persistent humming in his head when he heard a voice in the doorway and sprang back to attention.

Seizing his greatsword from its scabbard, he hurried to the edge of the doorway and braced himself for the intruders.

A dwarf was the first through the entrance, her hands still on the handles of her daggers. She was pale, freckled, deep scars running across the bridge of her broken nose, with hair the colour of a rage demon and grey eyes that were twice as sharp, and not a hint of the Warden insignia about her. She was also accompanied by his sister, Varric, a Seeker of Truth and another mage, which he supposed made her the Inquisitor.

“Relax Carver, it’s just me. I’ve brought the Inquisitor.” Frowning, Hawke glanced around the cave. “Where are the other two?”

“Wardens got too close, so they decided to scout out for another camp. We didn’t know when you were coming –“

“Well, we’re here now.” The dwarf interrupted. “And I find myself in need of a Warden.”

Hawke rolled her eyes, and Carver noted with a fluttering sense of unease the way her fingers caressed her staff.

“Carver, this is Inquisitor Lisbet Cadash. Inquisitor, likewise. I was hoping we would find all three of you. You know, to complete the set.”

Cadash merely shrugged, her cold gaze appraising him. She did not release her daggers, not even as Carver slowly put away his greatsword.

“One should be more than enough to tell me why the Wardens are disappearing, and I am faced with a darkspawn magister. One who should be dead. Tell me, does one have something to do with the other?”

“Loghain seems to think so. When my sister and I killed that Corypheus I made sure that word was sent to Weisshaupt, and they were happy enough. But Loghain says that an Archdemon can suffer fatal wounds and survive. I didn’t know about this until we were summoned out of the Free Marches. We were supposed to be scouring for other Deep Road entrances along the Wounded Coast when Warden-Commander Clarel summoned every Warden in Southern Thedas to Orlais.”

“She can do that?”

He shrugged. “Not all the Wardens left. Stroud decided to go as an envoy, and I wanted to go with him. He noticed that she had replaced most of the Senior Wardens, and he decided to investigate. Then we all began to hear the Calling.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched his sister twitch slightly and suppressed a bitter smile. If the Inquisitor hadn’t been there, he had no doubt that she would’ve run over and socked him one for keeping secrets. Somehow he thought the punch would’ve been better than watching the colour drain from her face.

“Carver, why didn’t you tell me!”

“Sorry Ellie. I was bound by an oath of secrecy.”

“And you’re not now?” Interrupted Cadash.

“Now there’s an ancient darkspawn on the loose and every Warden in Southern Orlais thinks they’re dying.”

“I hardly see how this is relevant.”

“If the Wardens fall, what happens during the next Blight? The Wardens are the only ones who can save the world. Who can blame us for trying to take precautions?”

Slowly, Hawke shook her head. “I don’t know what is worse: that the dead magister can control Wardens or that he’s bluffing them with a false Calling, and they’re falling for it.”

“All I know is that without us the world will fall to the Blight, and Clarel would resort to anything to prevent it. Stroud believed that the Warden-Commander intended to perform a blood magic ritual, as did Loghain. We never managed to get any details before the rest of the Wardens turned on us at -”

“What you’re saying is we need to intercept Warden orders?”

“I, what? No -”

But Cadash had already made her mind up, and shrugged off his attempts at interjecting with little more than an order.

“Return to Skyhold. We will see if Leliana can intercept one of their supply chains to find out what these damned fools are doing before they destroy the world.” Turning to him once more, she silently assessed him one last time before continuing. “You will come back with us. One man should pose no more of a risk of corruption than Warden Blackwall already does. Just keep yourself out of trouble, the Ancestors only know that place manages to find enough of it on its own.”


End file.
